The necessity and importance of a balanced ecosystem is well established. The concept of managed marshlands, for example, including engineered systems for enhancement of marshlands, has received widespread attention. In general, the purpose of managed marshes, artificial wet lands and the like is to provide benefits to wild life and to man, while minimizing potentially destructive vectors. Thus a particular concern of urban and regional boards, state departments of fish and game and like governmental bodies is the establishment of guide lines for the discharge of waste waters so that alteration of environmental conditions in ponds and lakes and marshlands will not destroy natural habitats for animal life. By way of illustration, rapid increases in plant growth brought about by excessive nutrient deposition (eutrophication) in small bodies of water or peripheral portions of large bodies of water, through runoff of soil fertilizers and discharge of municipal or industrial wastes, can result in "blooms" of aquatic algae and a rapid disruption of the normal trophic balance between algae and algal feeders. Although algae are common inhabitants of surface waters, excessive quantities can be very troublesome to both wild life and to man. Because increased amounts of mineral wastes are being discharged into open bodies of water where they can be used as food by algae, many inland ponds and lakes are being smothered by algal population explosions. Such increases in algae do not pass normally into the food chain as fish and other lower forms of animal life cannot feed on algae. In the case of water supplies designed for human consumption, excessive amounts of algae can produce disagreeable odors and "fishy" tastes as well as clogging of filtration machinery.
In general, a solution to the problem of rapid algae growth caused by excessive nutrient deposition through natural and artificial waste water discharge, which will not disrupt the normal ecology of inland ponds, marshlands and the like, is highly to be desired.